Ardea alba - Great Egret

The bird's long neck and legs are ideally suited to its feeding method which involves patient stalking after fish, frogs and other aquatic fauna. It's pure white plumage is distinctive, in the breeding season it develops superb lacy plumes on the back and chest and these were once sought after as hat decorations called aigrettes. At one time, so heavy was the slaughter of the nesting egrets that they were in danger of extinction. The birds are now protected. There are no breeding colonies in this part of Victoria, with most in periodically flooded red gum forests in the Murray basin.